


Resentment

by ebonyandunicorn



Category: Primeval
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 11:09:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebonyandunicorn/pseuds/ebonyandunicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen's gone, and Cutter's got a job to do, but he's not used to doing things on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resentment

_Stephen was a_

Delete delete delete.

_Stephen Hart was a well-loved_

Delete delete delete.

_Stephen was a valued and capable_

Delete delete delete.

_Stephen Hart was a cheating bastard who slept with my wife and then lied about it for eight years._

There. That was closer to the truth. Nick Cutter stared at the nearly-blank word document for another two minutes before he slammed the laptop shut and ran both hands through his hair. It was almost 3am on the morning of Stephen’s funeral and Cutter could barely think straight, let alone compose a eulogy for his best friend of almost ten years. He was beginning to wish fervently that he’d delegated the responsibility to someone else.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, though, Nick knew that there was nobody else. Stephen had always been quiet and aloof, even among his fellow ARC members; Cutter was much the same, which went a long way towards explaining why they were so close. Even with each other they had never been particularly talkative. Their evenings together had mostly been comprised of whiskey-drinking and paper-reading in companionable silence, one or the other of them occasionally venturing forth a comment on the latest palaeontological finding. When they had spoken at length, it had always been about uni work or their latest field trip. They would never have discussed anything half as deep as what Cutter was trying to write. He would never have imagined having to write it.

Stephen was to blame, too, for Cutter’s desire to pass off the responsibility to someone else. The professor’s distaste for any work-related part of his job – marking assignments, dealing with students, actually giving the lectures in the first place – was legendary. It was Stephen, his lab assistant, who had ended up doing most of the boring work that Nick had hated, and Cutter had gotten used to simply asking Stephen to do things – though towards the end he hadn’t even needed to ask anymore. He still hadn’t quite come to terms with the fact that he would never ask Stephen anything again.

He remembered complaining aloud years and years ago about an email he had had to compose to the head of another faculty. Stephen had laughed for a full day at how worked-up Cutter was getting before he finally gave in and agreed to help out. The thing Nick had never understood about Stephen was that he could be such a quiet, almost taciturn person so much of the time and yet still have the social skills that made this sort of thing easy. “Just imagine you’re speaking to her face-to-face,” Stephen had said. “Try it out before you send it. Say it aloud.” Cutter had scowled and grumbled at the time, but it had been good advice and he’d fallen back on it on multiple occasions thereafter.

Now, he supposed, was as good a time as any to do just that.

“Stephen,” he began. His voice was hoarse from lack of use and sounded loud as a cannon in the silence of the very early morning. Feeling irrationally self-conscious, Nick cleared his throat and started again. “Stephen. You’re… you were… ach, this is ridiculous.” He stood up, grabbed the empty mug from the desk, and stomped out of the office in search of more coffee.

He broke just short of the entrance to the kitchen and hurled the mug across the room.

“Damn it, Stephen!” he shouted furiously, his whole body shaking, his hands clenched into fists. “Just – damn it! Damn you. I hate you. D’you hear me? I hate you!” The words were coming in an uncontrollable flood, all anger and hopelessness and grief. “I hate what you did with Helen. I hate that you lied to me for so many years. I hate that I’m standing here now, yelling at nothing, at three in the bloody morning, because you’re not here to help me sort this out, _because you’re dead!_ ”

Nick Cutter never shouted. Nick Cutter never said so many words at a time. Nick Cutter sure as hell didn’t cry – except he did, and he did it now, at three in the morning, alone and in the dark, because it hurt. It hurt to know that Stephen was gone and that he wasn’t coming back. It hurt to know that they had never truly resolved all the conflict between them, the conflict that had ruined the deepest friendship either of them had ever known. It hurt to know that Stephen had died for him and that he had never gotten to thank him for that, to tell him everything he was going to say later that day over his coffin, with dozens of people looking on but nobody who actually _knew_ him. God, it hurt, it hurt so much –

“I don’t hate you,” he whispered to the empty room, staring through his tears at the shattered remains of the mug on the floor. “I don’t. I miss you, Stephen. I miss talking to you even without words. I miss our field trips. I miss how passionate you’d get about conservation, and how you’d let me talk palaeontology to you for – for hours at a time. I miss you always having my back and I miss having yours. I just…” He shook his head, mouth twisting at the uselessness of his words. Stephen was gone. He was never coming back, and he couldn’t possibly be hearing this. “I hate you for leaving,” Nick said at last. “And I hate myself for letting you go.”


End file.
